1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to storage media which store data in a predetermined format, to identifying data in the storage media, to storing the data in a predetermined format on the storage media, to reproducing the data stored on the storage media, to managing information using the storage media, and to utilizing the data stored on the storage media.
2. Description of the Prior Art
With a major technological advantage over other storage media in dynamic range, SN ratio, capacity, and portability, compact disks (CD) have been widely used as storage media for storing music data (audio data). Music software is, in most cases, stored on music CD (CD-DA) for sale.
The data format stored in the music CD is regulated by one of the international standards. Although there are a few international standards, they are based on the same data format. That is, the contents of the stored audio data, normally referred to as the TOC (table of contents), are written to the read-in area (the innermost track). The program area is provided outside the TOC to store audio data, etc. The program area is physically divided by tracks, and the TOC data refer to the total performance time, total number of the music pieces, and the performance time of each music piece, etc. Audio data of two channels (L and R) is written to each track in frame units. Data of one frame consists of a frame synchronization signal, a sub-code, audio data, a parity bit, etc.
The sub-code area consists of 8 bits, that is, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, and W. The P and Q bits of the area store the control data for the program functions such as detecting the start of each music piece, indicating the performance time, and playing music in a predetermined order. Although the audio data cannot be directly read from the music CD, the TOC data and the sub-code area data can be successfully read.
Normally, the music CDs only store the control data for use in reading audio data to play only music. Therefore, the music CDs are commonly used to only play the stored music and do not serve sufficiently when the user wants to learn the stored music because the user has to be provided with a memo of the words. The user also has to obtain from magazines or other information sources the information about the music stored on the music CD.
It seems to be indispensable for the music CDs to be designed to remove this inconvenience, further to allow the user to listen to the specified portion of the performance of the music, or to repeatedly listen to the specified portion of the performance.
The problems with the music CDs are also those with other CDs such as CD-Gs and the storage media providing various formats of data.
On the other hand, CDs are used as read-only memory (CD-ROM). Since the CD-ROM also has the above described advantage, it is widely utilized as the storage media for storing programs and data. Therefore, a CD-ROM drive (CD playback device) is incorporated into a desk-top personal computer as a standard component these days. With an increasing popularity of multimedia, a number of computers are originally equipped with sound sources.
The computers equipped with sound sources and CD playback devices are normally designed to play back music CDs. The music CDs are very popular music media used by people of all ages and cover various categories and a large number of music pieces in each category. Therefore, adding a function of multimedia as an element of amusement to the popularly used music CDs will ensure the strong upturn of the popularity and sales of the music CDs, thereby greatly contributing to enlarging the music market. The users have expected the functions to be easily added to the existing functions.
The above explanation has concentrated on the CDs because they are very popular storage media at present. If storage media other than the CDs, such as mini-disks (MDs), become popular in the market, then the similar request will be issued to the MDs.